Ideon builds proprietary muon detectors and a software stack that use muon tomography to create subsurface images, enabling more targeted mineral exploration. Its hardware has undergone about a 50x miniaturization, shrinking from roughly the size of a small car to units that fit in boreholes the diameter of a coffee cup. In case studies the company reports a 10x reduction in drilling compared with conventional exploration workflows. Ideon attributes recent commercial viability to advances in AI, cloud computing and semiconductors that allow processing of high-volume datasets. The company is already working with large mining firms including Glencore and Vale. Ideon says it will use the new funding to expand the team, build out its software stack and further refine its proprietary detectors. The company is based in British Columbia and has productized more than a decade of R&D and field trials. Ideon Technologies develops a discovery platform that uses cosmic-ray muon tomography, integrating proprietary detectors, imaging systems, inversion technologies, and artificial intelligence to deliver x-ray-like visibility up to 1 km underground. The company’s core product is a bore-hole detector designed to fit industry-standard drill-holes and improve geologists’ field-of-view; customer-sponsored field trials have driven uptake in an early access program. Ideon says its technology can reduce exploration drilling and associated carbon emissions by tenfold while identifying targets with 95% or higher certainty. The breakthrough targets the global mineral exploration market (>$12B USD) and also has applications in oil & gas (including SAG-D), critical infrastructure, and national security where projects are already underway. Ideon will use the new capital to develop and release the bore-hole detector in 2021 and plans to hire several new roles in the Vancouver area. Founded in 2013 as a spin-off from TRIUMF, Ideon positions itself as a commercial pioneer in muon tomography for subsurface resource discovery.

Total raised

$17M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Sep 2022